A few minutes elapsed ere Tom and the mate gained a place of partial security on the poop. The scene that met their gaze there was terrible beyond description. Not far ahead the sea roared in irresistible fury on a reef of rocks, towards which the ship was slowly drifting. The light of the moon was just sufficient to show that a few of the men were still clinging to the rail of the forecastle, and that the rigging of the main and foremasts still held fast.
“Have you got the hatchet yet?” asked Tom of the mate, who clung to a belaying-pin close behind him.
“Ay, but what matters it whether we strike the rocks on our beam-ends or an even keel?”
The mate spoke in the tones of a man who desperately dares the fate which he cannot avoid.
“Here! let me have it!” cried Tom.
He seized the hatchet as he spoke and clambered to the gangway. A few strokes sufficed to cut the overstrained ropes, and the mainmast snapped off with a loud report, and the ship slowly righted.
“Hold on!” shouted Tom to a man who appeared to be slipping off the bulwarks into the sea.
As no reply was given, the sailor boldly leapt forward, caught the man by the collar, and dragged him into a position of safety.
“Why, Bill, my boy, is’t you?” exclaimed the worthy man in a tone of surprise, as he looked at the face of our hero, who lay on the deck at his feet; but poor Bill made no reply, and it was not until a glass of rum had been poured down his throat by his deliverer that he began to recover.
Several of the crew who had clung to different parts of the wreck now came aft one by one, until most of the survivors were grouped together near the wheel, awaiting in silence the shock which they knew must inevitably take place in the course of a few minutes, for the ship, having righted, now drifted with greater rapidity to her doom.